Advice about mystery debit to account...

dotdash79

It's an authorisation hold request. Most debit card payments do this and in most cases they will know the total being debited so the hold request will turn into a transaction.

When the merchant doesn't know how much you are going to spend they either put a small hold (i.e. £1 or £2) or quite a high amount if it's a hotel or car rental place (can be £100s). Once these amounts are known they then take the money for what you owe and then let the hold drop off.

Depending on the card issuer it can be a couple of days to 10 days.

LibbiC

I've just contacted Tesco customer services web chat. This is what they said:
"I can confirm the £2 is an authorisation check we carry out each time you checkout. The £2 isn't taken from your account and should be available within 5 working days depending on your bank...we carry out this check to ensure the card is valid."

AUDDERS

This happened to me over the weekend but Tesco helped themselves to 2 x £20 which appeared on my staement as TescoCheshunt. Ironically only found out when I tried to use my Debit Card at TESCO!!!!!!! My card had been declined as they had decided to help themselves to £40 of mine! If I went to their stores and helped myself to £40 out of the till, I'd be reported and arrested, this is outright theft. Lesson - don't use your Debit Card at Tesco or better still don't shop at Tesco!

I have never done any online shopping with Tesco so can't understand why they would test my card.

Imbroglio

Audders, have you queried this with your bank? This is how my card fraud was picked up - first an unauthorised tesco transaction (there's no tesco near me so I was sure I hadn't used my card there, although obviously I doubt that this was genuinely Tesco) and then they tried to use my details in a cycle shop somewhere in the US!

dancingfairy

Get in touch with your bank and report it as a fraudulent transaction.
Why would Tesco take your money? How would they have got your details? It sounds like a fraud to me.
df

besswales

definately check with your bank--as an ex-employee i can assure you that tesco don't do this unless testing for dot.com shopping and then only for £2. which doesn't actually leave your account its just "flagged"" for a day or two before becoming available to spend again

FireWyrm

Actually, I find it pretty disgusting that they think it appropriate to help themselves to £2 and to hold it 'pending' or whatever. What if it really was my last £2! If they need to ping the card, that is fine, I understand this, but why not 2p instead - why £2? If I held a 3kg bag of pasta as 'pending' I'd be done for shoplifting. It isnt their money and I dont know who they think they are depriving me of the use of any amount of my money for any length of time.

demipowell

Did anyone have any luck challenging Tesco Over this? I've stupidly only realised this practise after using Tesco multiple times in £10 resulted in no being able to withdraw money from my bank account as they had so much of it "on hold". (I'm still waiting for it back).

Chrisblue1962

FireWyrm wrote: »

Actually, I find it pretty disgusting that they think it appropriate to help themselves to £2 and to hold it 'pending' or whatever. What if it really was my last £2! If they need to ping the card, that is fine, I understand this, but why not 2p instead - why £2? If I held a 3kg bag of pasta as 'pending' I'd be done for shoplifting. It isnt their money and I dont know who they think they are depriving me of the use of any amount of my money for any length of time.

Totally agree Firewyrm. This £2.00 "temporary deduction" malarkey smacks of sharp practice. I bet Tesco are making a nice amount of interest by "holding" thousands of £2.00 transactions even just for 24 hours before giving the owners their money back! But Tesco will justify it by saying it's for "anti-fraud and security" purposes...yeah right!

peter3hg

Chrisblue1962 wrote: »

Totally agree Firewyrm. This £2.00 "temporary deduction" malarkey smacks of sharp practice. I bet Tesco are making a nice amount of interest by "holding" thousands of £2.00 transactions even just for 24 hours before giving the owners their money back! But Tesco will justify it by saying it's for "anti-fraud and security" purposes...yeah right!

The amount would be neglible for a company the size of Tesco. This article (http://internetretailing.net/2013/01/sainsburys-online-business-grows-by-15-during-christmas-quarter/) suggests that in Tesco's busiest week in 2012 they received half a million online sales. Lets pretend that this has increased significantly and they now receive 200,000 orders a day. This means they are always holding £400,000 of customer's money for this purpose. Even if they managed to get 5% interest on it that is only £20,000 a year which, for a company with turnover of £63bn, is just meaningless.
I think in this case it is safe to say that the money is for the purpose stated.